An advisor to Poland’s president has said that the victory of Francois Hollande in the French presidential elections is a good choice “for France, Poland and Europe”. READ MORE

That Europe has not lost its luster and power of attraction despite the eurozone crisis was made evident in an unlikely part of the continent: the Western Balkans. Beyond the excitement of this weekend’s French and Greek elections, Serbia also held presidential, parliamentary, and local elections. The message from the voters, after the mist of electoral rhetoric had been dispelled, was two-fold and clear: there is a sense of deep concern and dissatisfaction with the political class but also of belief in the need to pursue the paths of democratic reform and European integration. READ MORE

Britain controlled about one-fourth of the Earth's land surface and one-fifth of the world's population in 1939. Fifty years later, its holdings outside the British Isles had become trivial, and it even faced an insurgency in Northern Ireland. READ MORE

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is to speed up the establishment of a special account and development bank so as to enhance members' ability to cope with new threats and challenges, reported Xinhua. READ MORE

To celebrate Europe Day, euronews took over a room at the European Council in Brussels, which is usually reserved for heads of state and government. Here Herman Van Rompuy answered questions, put to him by euronews viewers. READ MORE

Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambaev, in an interview with the Russian daily Kommersant on April 10, said that while some may want to drive a wedge between Russia and Kyrgyzstan, “this will be hard to do.” Considering Atambayev’s streak of bewildering statements on Russia, and Kyrgyzstan’s policy over the last month, fallout appears to be becoming a permanent possibility. READ MORE

In April, Rustam Latifov, the head of the Tajik Parliament’s Ecological Commission, announced Tajikistan’s intention to seek international donors to help secure more than 50,000 tons of radioactive waste in Taboshar and distribute humanitarian funds for 2,000 people in the immediate vicinity who are particularly exposed in the villages of Old Taboshar and Somoni (ozodi.org, April 12). Taboshar, situated in the Ferghana Valley of Sugd Oblast just north of Khujand (Tajikistan’s second largest city), is one of ten Soviet-era nuclear sites in the country. While a part of the Soviet Union, Sugd Oblast was a center for both the extraction and enrichment of uranium. Mines in Taboshar and Adrasman provided uranium to the Leninabad Mining and Chemical Combine (now the Vostochnyy Rare Metal Industrial Association, or Vostokredmet) in the city of Chkalovsk. The then-Leninabad plant processed up to 1,000,000 metric tons of uranium a year to enrich yellowcake and uranium hexafluoride and provided the material for the USSR’s first nuclear weapon. READ MORE

It appears that Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s efforts to obtain a one-on-one meeting with US President Barack Obama are coming up short, an informed source indicates. Obama's preliminary schedule for the upcoming NATO summit reportedly does not include individual meetings with any of the Central Asian leaders who are planning on attending the event. READ MORE

Kazakhstan as one of the largest countries of Asia is gradually becoming a center of political transformation of the Islamic world. As head of the 38th Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the country is making every effort to resolve the pressing problems of the Islamic community. READ MORE

NATO’s Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, called for close cooperation between NATO and Russia on missile defence to help bolster security against future common threats at a Moscow conference on 3 May 2012. READ MORE